The dispensing of medicine to large numbers of patients as in a hospital or nursing home presents many problems. It is often necessary to move medicines from a supply location to wherever the patients may be at a given time. In a hospital a patient is most usually found in his room, but nursing homes provide far greater problems as patients may be in a recreation area, or a lunch room, or otherwise in a location where many patients are present at the same time. Patients in nursing homes often are confused or forgetful, and a patient may simply wander away before a nurse can deliver to him all of his medicine and be sure that he takes it. Conversely, a confused patient may forget that he has already had his medicine, and try to help himself thereto. Constant attention is demanded on the part of the nurse dispensing medication to be sure that patients do not take medicine that they are not supposed to, and that patients actually take the medicine that they are supposed to. This also leads to more time expended in dispensing of medicines than can be afforded, and leaves opportunities for possible errors in the dispensing of medicine.
In my aforesaid co-pending application, Ser. No. 493,931, I disclose a medicine dispensing cart in which patient cards and medication cards were stored in bins comprising spacer walls on shelves arranged fore and aft of the cart with cup holders disposed in front of each bin for dispensing of individual medications. The medication cart and the attendant method of operation thereof worked quite well, but required considerable cart height, and was of slightly limited storage capacity for the size of the cart.